“Well, what did he say?” asked Victor.
“He said what you never had the sense to see, my boy; but I expect Mr. Merceron won’t be obliged to me for repeating it.”
“I should like to hear it,” said Charlie, with necessary politeness.
“Well, it’s not me, its old Thrapston; and if you say it’s wrong, I’ll believe yon. Old Thrapston—hang it, Victor, that old man ought to be hanged! Why, only the other day I saw him——”
“Do stick to the point,” groaned Victor.
“All right. Well, he said, ‘I’ll lay a guinea there was a’—and he winked his sinful old eye, you know, for all the world like a what-d’ye-call-it in a cathedral one of those hideous—I say, what is the word, Victor? I saw ‘em when Agatha took me—beg pardon, Merceron?”
Was the world full of Agathas? If so, it would be well not to start whenever one was mentioned. Charlie recovered himself.
“I think you must mean a gargoyle,” he said, wondering who this Agatha might be.
“Of course I do. Fancy forgetting that! Gargoyle, of course. Well, old Thrapston said, ‘I’ll lay a guinea there was a woman in that dashed summer house, Calder, my boy.’”
Victor Button’s eyes lighted with a gleam,